These days I am doing a lot of rethinking, and I would credit it to Adam Grant, for his book ‘Think Again’ inspired me. A lot of this rethinking is directed towards the way I live my life. I have always loved and enjoyed a good story, either via books or via moving pictures. Now though, I am trying to analyse my pass-time. I asked one simple question to myself, “What is the one thing the characters in books never seem to do?”

I am doing a lot of reading these days (a lot considering my line of work: Software Developer). The current book that I am reading is by my favorite author Gabriel Garcia Marquez; it’s called “Love in the time of Cholera”. I had listened to the audiobook of the same a long time ago, but I bought the paperback to enjoy more time with my characters. Factually a lot of the incidence in the book is inspired by the love story of the author’s parents. The story of young love who were destined to go separate way only to find their way back in their old age is a gripping plot and a true masterpiece. It’s all well and good, yet the rethinking question is, “What is the one thing the characters in this book never seem to do?” The answer is, they hardly read a book at least not in the foreground of the story. The same is true for any fiction you are reading or any film/tv-series you are watching. The characters are living their life in full while we are living their life, enjoying it vicariously. Can we do better?

If someone reads our life story and, in that story, if we are spending most of our time on couch living vicariously then certainly to the reader of that story our life would appear boring. Reading books or watching movies do give us an escape from reality and it is fruitful against the pressure and torment of real life yet the sense of achievements we receive is not ours but the characters of the story. If a character is well liked by most and they win the day, it is their victory not ours hence in reality we gain no experience, no memory nothing worth sharing by just watching or reading a story. It is definitely not difficult to do most of the stuff that a character is doing. Take a romantic movie for example, we typically see a man and a woman fall in measureless love, the man tries his best to give the woman best of dating experience, either he cooks for her or take her to a restaurant with a nice ambience, he attends to all her needs, he listens to her and more importantly he is always ready to give his all for her sake, while woman is also deeply in love and she smiles which makes the man’s day (It all happen like this till things turns for the worst before returning finally to the best). Can we not do the same to our woman (or man), is it that hard. If you are still missing your significant half, surely you are not going to find them in your book or on your couch, get out, do something, meet people and when you happened to find them, treat them even better than what the best of romantic authors had imagined. What if I am not into romantic books, you say. What do you like the most then?

If you are someone who likes adventure movies, then go for your own adventure. I like adventures, and ever since I have done rethinking, I am looking for my chance to go on trekking or running around one of the prettiest lakes, I have ever seen. I go out and be part of forums (well it’s Toastmaster in my case) where I meet interesting people. Most of the times in stories, the characters travel and rediscover themself. Traveling in these times is one of the easiest activities you can pick with the most rate of return. In the era of train/flight/road connectivity there are many cool destinations ranging from pristine beaches to snowcap mountains at on average ten hours away. If you are truly an indoor person, then there are many indoor activities for you, draw, cook, paint, make pottery etc., these are just suggestive options, sky is truly the limit if you decide to come out your vicarious unliving session. However, I have an easier solution, are you Interested?

We all have a taste, we like certain kind of story, whether it’s romance or comedy or any other genre. There are certain aspects in the story which appeals to us. We can try to implement that aspect in real life wherever possible (try not to be Superman or Kickass). Do whatever you like your favorite character doing. It is that easy, trust me, and don’t forget to be creative.

I love to cook, and I am always inspired by different foods I see in movies or even documentaries. My inspiration often leads me to supermarkets and then to kitchen. I had my first roasted mutton when I saw it on TV. This is really a simple trick to come out of the vicarious life yet the best idea would be to build your base from vicarious experiences and build skyscrapers on that base. I can give the example of science fiction to explain my metaphor. In a good science fiction book, there are many impossible gadgets, mentioned yet numerous kids take those unreal gadgets as challenge and make them real, when they grow old to be scientists. Kindle was built in this century however Star-Trek-The-Original-Series already had a digital book reader like that the last century; they even had cell phones before they were built in real life. There are many scientists and astronauts who are inspired by many books of Arthur C. Clarke. These inventor and scientist didn’t get lost in the vicarious world they entered rather draw inspiration from it. I implore you to do the same if you don’t want your life story to be a boring one liner (He spend most of his life on the couch reading or watching tv). Do we stop reading books and watching moving pictures all together?

I think no, especially when I have made a point that vicarious adventure can be basis for true adventure. However, there must be a balance and definitely more weightages should be given to the real life. Make your own story ninety percent of time while enjoy only ten percent of the time someone else’s story, if this is too much then at least ensure that you are having more real adventure than vicarious one. Being able to listen to stories is a bliss, being able to tell stories is a gift and yet the true mastery of life is to make life better than the best of the stories. Vicarious unliving is when there is victory only in the stories we encounter. The real living is when stories are our own. Vicarious unliving is easy yet boring, real living is difficult yet interesting. My act of writing this article is also part of my rethinking to walk toward real living as I think, act, live and then write about it.